


When Life Sucks, Put On Some Glitter

by delires



Series: Chav!verse [3]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Public Sex, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-07
Updated: 2011-06-07
Packaged: 2017-10-20 05:29:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delires/pseuds/delires
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur has the heart of a raver.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Life Sucks, Put On Some Glitter

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to 'We Can Do This Until We Pass Out'. Officially, this was meant to be a fill for the prompt: While out at a club, Eames convinces Arthur to try poppers with him, which leads to semi-public sex. Written for bookshop, who won me in the help_nz auction. Special thanks to ohfreckle, who inspired the title!

Arthur treats Sundays with a special kind of reverence. On Sunday morning, there is no alarm; it is the only day that Arthur does not drag himself out for a run before starting work. On Sunday morning, the bed is always warm and the room is always bright. He is free to roll over, pull the covers over his head and think of nothing. 

This is why Arthur does not particularly appreciate being woken by the dulcet tones of Dolly Parton, singing about working nine to five.

Her voice is wailing from the Ipod dock on the dresser and Arthur opens his eyes to find Eames’s unshaven face hovering above him.

“Morning, pengting,” Eames says. 

Were it not for the mug of hot coffee in Eames’s hand, Arthur would have lashed out violently. As it is, he settles for pushing himself up on one arm and squinting at the Ipod in accusation.

“Why do you own this song? There’s no rapping in it,” he says.

Eames holds out the coffee, which smells amazing. “Topical, though, innit? I poured you a cup of ambition, bruv.”

“I should not need ambition to make it through my Sunday,” Arthur mutters. He pushes a hand into his hair, which feels stiff and angular from sleep.

Eames seems far too cheerful as he grins and switches on his posh accent to say, “I know. But I was quite hoping that you would not be terribly averse to allowing me to fuck you breathless.”

Arthur makes sure that all containers of scalding liquid are set safely on the nightstand before he pulls Eames down on top of him.

The smell of coffee beans is clinging to Eames’s skin, laid over the familiar morning scent of his unshowered musk. Arthur teases Eames’s lips apart with his tongue, feeling the dip of the mattress that Eames’s knees make on either side of his hips.

In between slow, sucking kisses, Eames says, “This is so frightfully good of you, darling. You really are awfully obliging.”

“Shut up,” Arthur says, pressing up against Eames’s body. He drapes an arm around Eames’s back and feels the shifting shapes of muscle beneath bare skin. 

Distantly, Arthur hears the jangling of the tags of Jay-Z’s collar and the running clatter of nails, but then the barking starts and that noise is impossible to ignore.

“Jay-Z, fuck off!” Arthur snaps, tearing his mouth away from Eames’s, as the dog jumps onto the bed. Eames twists and swipes a fist through the air. That makes Jay-Z step backwards, but he does not look afraid. He stares up at Eames and keeps barking.

“Ain’t even afraid, though, is he?”

When Eames punches a fist directly towards Jay-Z’s face, the dog barely flinches. Eames’s weight resting against Arthur’s thigh is beginning to make the muscle feel numb. Arthur winces and shifts uncomfortably, pushing his forearm against Eames’s chest.

“He knows you wouldn’t hurt him. Jesus, Eames, get him out of my room. Shut him in the kitchen or something.”

Eames makes a sucking noise, with his tongue against his teeth.

“Nah, man. He ain’t had a walk yet. I’ll take him.”

He climbs off the bed and grabs a wrinkled T-shirt from the floor, pulling it over his head, covering up the tight contours of his muscle. He steps into a pair of sneakers, without bothering to undo the laces, just stamping until his feet are wedged inside. Jay-Z is scampering out of the room and back in again, ecstatic in his anticipation. Arthur can feel the tingling of blood rushing back into his thigh, but he isn’t happy. He sits up straight and hurls a pillow in Eames’s direction. 

“Yo, _bruv_ ,” Arthur says. “What is this? Forget him. I want you to fucking take _me_.”

Eames stares at Arthur, at the pillow, again at Arthur. His gaze is hot and amused as he prowls back towards the bed, despite Jay-Z whining from the doorway. He wraps a hand around the bedpost, leaning down.

“Aw, city boy,” he coos. “Man, I just love it when you brat around.”

“You woke me. On a Sunday.”

Eames ducks his head to brush rough lips against Arthur’s mouth. Arthur absolutely refuses to kiss back, although he does not turn his head away.

“Enjoy your coffee,” Eames says. “I’ll be back in a jiff.”

“This is long.” Arthur’s arms are folded petulantly across his chest, but Eames just winks at him, snatches the pillow from the floor and hurls it back at Arthur on his way out of the door.

*

 

Arthur drinks his coffee and reads two chapters of his book. Then, he looks at the clock and gets pissed off enough to get out of bed and into the shower. Eames has been gone for ages. He has definitely missed the window on morning sex.

Sitting outside, with the culture pages, Arthur is trying to decide if he is hungry enough for breakfast, when a jar of Marmite (the revolting tar-like substance that Eames spreads on his toast) suddenly comes crashing down right in the middle of Arthur’s newspaper.

“We’re out,” Eames says, no longer cheerful.

Jay-Z scampers past them, to dig some fresh holes in the already ruined yard. Arthur looks up slowly. The Marmite is important. Life is more difficult when the house has no Marmite.

“And we’ve been out of PG Tips for a week now,” Eames adds.

“You never said.”

“Been tryin’ to drink that Lipton shit, innit. It tastes like fuckin’ dust.”

“Calm down,” Arthur says, standing up, because he can already see the street-thug sparking in Eames’s eyes.

“I miss London. I fuckin’ hate it here. Everything’s so fake,” Eames spits.

Arthur stares at him. “This place is my home.”

The day is already beginning to get hot. The sun glares off the windows of the house. All around them is the thick hum of Californian air. Eames kicks one foot against the decking, a gesture he often uses now, to get rid of pent-up aggression. 

“Well. Except you,” he says.

“Except me, what?”

“You ain’t fake.”

Eames’s shirt is warm, a little damp from sweat. Arthur smoothes his fingers over it, easing the wrinkles.

“What happened?” he asks.

Eames sighs and throws himself down into one of the metal chairs. “Jay-Z and I had another run-in with them dickheads next door. Them and their fuckin’ poodle.”

The couple next door are old-school LA types. They are conservative, limited, plastic. They have not had a kind word for Eames since he first moved in. On more than one occasion, Arthur has considered ‘accidentally’ letting Jay-Z get into their pristine yard, so that he can dirty it up for them.

Arthur steps astride Eames’s legs and sits down in his lap. “I wish I had Marmite to give you,” he says, which brings the tiniest hint of a smile to the corners of Eames’s mouth. He smoothes his hands through Eames’s hair. “Wanna fuck?” he asks.

This makes Eames’s smile break out in full.

“I suppose that’s the least you can do,” Eames says, squeezing his hands around Arthur’s ass.

*

 

They bang the tension out of one another until all worries are forgotten and they are tangled together amongst the sheets. Having used condoms to be clean, and now worked up the appetite for a healthy breakfast, not even the prospect of making the bed for the second time that morning can spoil Arthur’s mood. That is, until Eames hauls one arm back and throws his used condom across the bedroom.

It is not the first incident of its kind.

Arthur’s fist collides harmlessly with the solid muscle of Eames’s chest, but the blow is hard enough to make a point.

“Why do you do that? It’s disgusting. I’m probably going to fucking step on that when I get up and slip and break my neck-”

“It went in the bin.”

“How do you know it went in the bin? You can’t see the bin from here. And you live in America now. You call it a ‘trash can’ like normal people.”

“You tryin’ to beat my heritage out of me?”

“No, I’m trying to get you to stop doing shit like throw used condoms across our bedroom.”

“Oh, it’s ‘our’ bedroom now, isit? Ain’t just yours anymore?”

“I said ‘my’ bedroom.”

“Nah, man. You said ‘our’. Heard it with my own ears, innit.”

Arthur drags an exasperated hand over his face.

“Look. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll stop pretending that I don’t want to use the word ‘our’ every single time that I talk about something here. But then you have to promise never to throw condoms that are already full of jizz.”

Eames seems to consider this. “How about not-used ones that are still in the packet?”

“Then throwing is fine. In the right context. You’ll have to use your own discretion for that.”

Eames smiles slowly. His fingers tickle as they run over Arthur’s ribs, and press at the corner of Arthur’s jaw, tilting his face to the angle Eames wants it at.

“I love that you bother to use the phrase ‘stop pretending’. I love that, pengting. I love-”

Arthur closes the gap between them, sealing his lips over the one sentiment he still hates to hear out loud and cannot say for himself. But he makes up for that with his tongue and teeth, until the sound of the doorbell has Arthur pulling away and scrambling off the bed.

“Nobody just visits here,” he says, as he tugs on a pair of pants.

“Maybe it’s a delivery.”

“Did you order something?”

“No.”

“Did you?”

Eames sits up straight, pushing against the mattress. “ _No_ , Arthur.”

“If I go out there and there’s a fucking truckload of Marmite on the doorstep...” Arthur yanks a shirt over his head and drops his own neatly-tied condom into the trash, where Eames’s is already lying.

“Did it go in?” Eames is smirking expectantly from the bed. Arthur wants to lie, but Eames can always tell when he does.

“Yes, it went in the bin.”

“Thought it was a trash can?”

“Fuck you,” Arthur says and goes to answer the door.

He is half-prepared to confront an angry poodle-owner with missing teeth or a black eye. Instead, he finds Dom, holding a cardboard tray of takeout coffee and a brown paper bag.

“Morning,” Dom says, with a bright smile. “I’ve brought muffins.”

Arthur’s first instinct is to try to push his hair into a more logical shape, so that it does not look quite so much like sex hair in front of Dom. His second instinct is to question reality. He clings to the edge of his front door, reluctant to let Dom in without first ascertaining the level of risk he currently poses.

“Did something happen? What do you need? I have a phone. You could have called,” Arthur says. Dom stares at him with wide cow-eyes.

“No. The kids are with their grandparents for the week. That’s all. When I woke up this morning, the house seemed so quiet that I just...” Dom glances from the coffee to the bag of muffins, uncertainly. He looks so lost that Arthur feels instantly guilty.

“We were about to eat breakfast anyway,” Arthur says. “Why don’t you come in?” 

In no time, Dom is hunched, Gollum-like, over one of Eames’s full English breakfasts.

“This is amazing,” he says, swallowing down a mouthful of beans and sausage. “I’m trying to teach the kids about healthy eating so all I have at home is granola.”

As Dom licks his lips, Arthur tries not to draw comparisons between him and Jay-Z, who is just lifting his dripping face from his water bowl in the corner.

Eames is over by the stove, poking at pans with his spatula. “You want fried bread, pengting?”

Arthur looks up from his coffee. “No, I fucking don’t. I’m already worried enough about my cholesterol, living with you.”

Dom raises his fork. “I’ll take some more of that.”

“Fat’s good for you,” Eames says, “It’ll put colour in your cheeks.”

“That’s utter crap,” Arthur says, as Eames sets a plate down in front of him. This involves nudging Arthur’s cereal bowl out of the way with the rim of the plate.

“I’ve done you an egg, anyway.”

“This is bacon.”

“Man, don’t be a knob. You can’t have a fuckin’ egg without bacon.”

Arthur might have taken offense, but the bacon is perfectly crisp at its edges, and he is too busy shoving his cereal bowl aside further so that he can tear into it properly. Eames sits down with his own plate, watching Dom mop fried bread into the sauce of his baked beans. “One day, I’m gonna take you to a proper chippie, Domsky. And we’ll have battered sausages and deep-fried mars bars. And mushy peas.”

Dom’s eyes light up. “That sounds...Arthur, what was that word?”

“Sick,” Arthur says, licking the taste of bacon from his lips. “It sounds sick.”

*

 

“Okay. Cards on the table time. I didn’t just come here for the company,” Dom says, later, outside, over iced tea.

“I knew it,” Arthur says.

“I have this job.”

“Of course you do.”

“It’s nothing to get excited about. It’s just a little delicate and I wanted input from somebody better acquainted with the material.”

Arthur picks up the damp rubber bone that Jay-Z has just dropped on his foot and throws it back down the yard for him to chase.

“No.”

“You don’t know what it is yet,” Cobb says, and Arthur looks at him, tilting the sunglasses down his nose in order to see over the top of them.

“Will surprise freight trains be involved?”

In the seat between them, Eames throws back his head and laughs, slapping a palm against his thigh.

“That’s jokes.”

Dom glares at them both. His voice is clipped as he says, “It’s still too soon for that to be funny, actually.”

“Sorry, bruv,” Eames says, clapping Dom on the shoulder. He looks at Arthur. “Come on, pengting. Too soon to laugh at that, innit.”

Jay-Z is back, smacking the grubby bone against Arthur’s ankle, but Arthur is distracted by the way that Eames’s full lips are twitching in encouragement, the way that the hard sunlight makes his eyes look almost green.

With a sigh, Arthur inclines his head towards Dom. “Fine. I’m all ears,” he says. “Tell me what you need.”

*

 

For Dom, returning to the States has meant a return to the entirely legal field of corporate architecture. He does short-term consultant work for projects similar to those he used to take on back when he and Arthur first worked together. Arthur knows this because he is still the one who sets Dom up with most of the contracts. It has taken a while for Dom to ease himself back into full-time work, and Arthur feels more comfortable if he can take on some of the responsibility. He knows that Dom appreciates the support, even if he would never admit it outright.

Dom’s current contract is with a tourism company who are pioneering the use of dreamshare as a leisure activity. They have been licensed to create a limited series of tightly controlled scenarios suitable for the space of a person’s lunch break. The work is safe, straight-forward and creative. It had seemed perfect for Dom to tackle alone.

Of course, as it turns out, one of the settings on the company’s list is a gay nightclub, which Dom is too scared to research on his own.

“You’ll take the notes, right? You take the best notes,” he says, leaning forwards from the backseat of the car, gripping Arthur’s headrest with his fingers.

“Yes, I’ll take notes. Fair warning, though: I haven’t been to this place in–” Arthur pauses, to glance at Eames. “How long have you lived with me?”

Eames looks at him, from the passenger seat. “Not long enough for you to be finishing that sentence.”

“It’s been a long time,” Arthur says. “But I’m sure it’s still the same.”

“Yusuf should already be there by now,” Dom says, checking his watch.

Arthur frowns, flicks his turn signal and sweeps the steering wheel to the left. “I’m still not clear about Yusuf’s involvement in all of this.”

“He knows about pleasure dens,” Dom says.

“This is a perfectly legitimate travel company we’re dealing with,” Arthur recites, once again.

“Besides, he was in town, lecturing at UCLA. And I needed someone who’s definitely straight.”

Eames laughs. He is fiddling with the radio, scrolling through the stations in search of the grimiest beats. “Isit? To protect you from the gays?”

“Yeah, actually,” Dom says. “You joke, but I have a pretty face.”

“You do got a pretty face, though, bruv,” Eames says.

“Thank you. Kind of you to say so.”

“That’s fine,” Arthur says, tapping the brake pedal a bit too hard at a stoplight. “You two just carry on. Don’t mind me.”

“Just keepin’ you on your toes, pengting. Maybe we is too vanilla. You get me?”

“We’re not vanilla,” Arthur says, scandalised. “We just fucked this morning.”

“Oh my God.” Dom suddenly becomes very interested in the streets rushing past his window.

“In bed. Face to face. After you had your shower and I walked the dog. With condoms, so we wouldn’t make too much mess.”

“That was just sensible.”

“Swear down, man. Biggest drama of our day’s been about groceries. What even is that shit?”

“Hey, you chose to walk the dog. I told you to shut him in the kitchen and you ignored me.”

“Ain’t blamin’ you, blud. Just makin’ a point, innit.”

“It isn’t a valid point.”

“Oh my days.”

Arthur reaches to the dash and switches off the radio, because the sound of Eames’s bass is distracting him from the road. “Nobody likes you. Do you know that? I don’t like you.”

“I don’t like you either,” Eames says. He turns the radio back on.

“You used to like me when I let you screw around with me in tube stations.”

The driver’s seat creaks as Dom grabs the back of it and hauls himself forwards again, to peer through the windshield.

“Jesus Christ. Aren’t we there yet?” he says, in desperation.

Luckily for Dom, the club is just around the next corner. Arthur swings into a parking lot across the street and they walk together past the line, which snakes from the doors to the corner where Yusuf is waiting for them. He looks up a little nervously as they approach.

“I thought I was at the wrong place,” he says, reaching to shake Dom’s hand.

They get in line behind a raucous group of men in leather, who Eames is hugging and calling ‘bredren’ within minutes of meeting. Just because they are dressed down does not mean they need to be unprofessional, but Eames bums smokes and tries to put a hand-rolled cigarette between Arthur’s fingers while Arthur is trying to conduct some semblance of a formal briefing with Dom and Yusuf.

“We’re working. This isn’t social time,” Arthur says, turning angrily, brandishing his moleskine. “I’m the designated driver. I’m not drinking. I’m not smoking. I’m not climbing on any bars with you. All I’ll be doing is taking notes.”

“You’re chattin’ bare breeze, blud.”

“I wish you’d fucking talk so people can understand you.”

Eames blows a lungful of smoke out in a dismissive rush and snatches the moleskine out of Arthur’s hand. Before Arthur can take it back, he hurls it over his shoulder and onto the street.

“Wow,” Yusuf says.

There is not a hint of amusement in Arthur’s voice as he lifts an arm and points after his notebook. “Go get that,” he says, so dangerously that it takes only a split-second for Eames to obey.

*

 

Inside the club, the air is hazy and the music banging. Lights - filtered blue and green and pink and yellow - swoop across a dance floor where people are packed together tight. The crowd seems to move as one giant mass, pulsing in time to the beat.

Arthur feels instantly at home. The atmosphere here has always been the best in town, and it has been too long.

Behind him, he hears Dom shout above the music to Yusuf: “We stick by each other, no matter what. If anyone asks, we’re together.”

Eames is already thrumming with energy. He leans close, so that Arthur can hear him say, “I’m sorry I threw your notebook. That was terribly unsporting of me.”

“I forgive you,” Arthur says, brushing the corner of the offending item along the line of Eames’s jaw. It really should not make him want to moan out loud when Eames turns his head so that he can press his lips, quite chastely, to the notebook’s leathery cover.

“I’m getting you a drink,” Eames says, with a little squeeze of his hand around Arthur’s hip.

“I won’t drink it.”

“We’ll dance, then.”

Dom and Yusuf are already moving towards the bar, in search of liquid courage. The bass rings up from the floor, shudders through Arthur’s body. Arthur loves to dance and Eames is an excellent partner – he can pop like a boss. The temptation must show on Arthur’s face, because Eames steps closer, sliding his hand across Arthur’s chest. “I know you, pengting. You got the heart of a little raver. I can feel it in you,” he says and taps out the rhythm of the music onto Arthur’s ribs. “Bang-bang-slide. Bang-bang-slide.”

“Where do you get this shit?” Arthur asks, tucking his moleskine into the back pocket of his jeans. “It’s like you’re tripping acid. All the fucking time.”

A smile creeps slowly across Eames’s face as he says, “You know you can’t resist Basshunter.”

But it is Eames who Arthur cannot resist. They both know that.

Twenty minutes later, Arthur has forgotten that he is here for any reason other than to dance. Eames has slipped off to the bar to load up on the revolting sambuca that he loves so much, but Arthur is in stride and only a life-threatening fire could get him to willingly leave the dance floor now. Arthur likes to dance alone like this, at the centre of a crush of throbbing bodies, lost in the music’s bang-bang-slide. Eames is right; inside Arthur’s chest beats the poor, neglected heart of a raver.

The DJ is awesome. Each track slicks right into the next, with a drawn-out moment of suspense before the bass hits in hard and the whole club jumps. Glow sticks jiggle, as people pump their hands in the air. Arthur lets a guy wearing angel wings and towering white platforms clip three glowing bracelets – yellow, blue and red – around his wrist, and dab little spots of silver glitter onto his cheeks.

There are hips knocking against his own, elbows bumping his sides, and then that one strong arm, sliding confidently around his waist, which means it is safe for Arthur to turn into the person pressed behind his backbone.

“This is my favourite job of all time,” Arthur says, curling his tongue into Eames’s mouth, even though the taste of sambuca nearly chokes him and the kiss makes Eames’s hands clench too hard on his waist, throwing off his groove.

Arthur drags his fingers through his hair, shakes his head from side to side and lets Eames do whatever the hell he wants – lick along the neon bands at Arthur’s wrist, scrape the shirt up over his abs. He pushes a little glass bottle into Arthur’s hand and Arthur stops dancing for long enough to look down.

“Nobody had any acid, but I got these off some guy with wings. Safe, right?”

Arthur stares at the little container of poppers. He has not even seen a pack of these since he was in college.

“It’s not the eighties,” he says. “These are shit.”

“Man, fuck off. They’re sick. They lower your inhibitions, innit.”

“I’m not inhibited.” Arthur says this like a challenge. There is glitter on Eames’s face too, a bold stripe along each cheekbone. The shifting lights pick out stray flecks of it stuck to Eames’s mouth as Eames sucks his bottom lip between his teeth.

“Show me,” he says, unscrewing the lid of his container.

The music has gone high-energy, one song ending and just starting to bleed into the next. They are in that moment of stasis between familiar bass lines, where everything vibrates with anticipatory tension. One of Eames’s thighs is already between Arthur’s and their bodies have fallen into an easy rhythm, hips nudging, thighs flexing. It is far too hard for Arthur not to grind back, not to match Eames’s smile. They both know this song well, know where the poppers moment falls.

“Fuck it,” Arthur says, yanking the lid off his bottle. Eames hooks one elbow around Arthur’s just as the music soars and they inhale the drugs across their twined arms, like drinking champagne.

The rush is instant. It hits in a roaring swoop of energy, like hurtling over the first tall drop of a rollercoaster.

The lights explode. The beat of the music breaks into Arthur’s skull and clatters around inside. He can feel the racing bang of his heartbeat and that lightness of limbs, as blood relocates. His arm is still linked through Eames’s and the swell of muscle against his own makes the desire to fuck irrepressible. Arthur digs his fingers into the back of Eames’s neck, yanking him forwards to taste the hard slide his tongue. Eames bites into the kiss, his hands all over Arthur’s ass, squeezing over the denim, sinking beneath the waistband to feel flesh. He is tugging Arthur hard against him, pushing up with his thigh between Arthur’s legs, and Arthur ruts back, in time to the music, trying to shove his fingers down the neck of Eames’s t-shirt, groping for collarbones and firm, tattooed pecs.

Blunt fingernails are scrabbling at the flies of Arthur’s jeans, scratching over his stomach. Arthur reaches down to help, but then Eames is spinning him around, dizzyingly, until his back is pressed against Eames’s chest, and somehow his pants are unfastened and Eames’s hand is inside them, curling around his dick.

Arthur’s mouth drops open. He reaches back one arm, hooks it awkwardly around Eames’s neck and uses that grip for leverage, so that he can push his ass back against Eames’s crotch.

Already, Arthur is feeling woozy, as the rush of the poppers begins to ebb. His jeans are tight and unforgiving; they don’t leave enough room for movement. This make Eames’s hand too rough, but Arthur rides the friction anyway, enjoying that edge of discomfort.

As awareness creeps in, Arthur notices a man looking right at them, just feet away. He is watching the obvious motions of Eames’s hand stuffed down the front of Arthur’s pants. Arthur is already flushed, horny, breathless, and the poppers make him bold enough to keep eye contact with this stranger, as he arches into Eames’s touch and rocks his hips back.

Other people are starting to look now. The stranger smiles slowly, and Arthur smiles back, sharp and glittery in the flashing lights, until Eames grabs his jaw and turns his face up.

“Here,” Eames says, pointing at his own eyes, which are dark and hungry, the pupils dilated.

Instantly, Arthur forgets the mild excitement of being watched. He forgets the urge to move in time to the beat. He forgets everything except the desire to have Eames thrust deep inside of him until he feels full and stretched and connected.

“This place has a backroom,” Arthur says, running his fingers over every part of Eames that he can reach.

“Show me,” Eames says, and pulls his hand out of Arthur’s pants.

At the back of the club is a doorway, discreetly covered by a heavy curtain. A bouncer lingers in front of it. Arthur walks up, leading Eames behind him by the hand. They wait until the bouncer’s eyes slide deliberately away from them and then they slip behind the curtain to a small room, with scarlet walls.

“Safe,” Eames says, pulling Arthur against him. “You got all this city’s secrets, don’t you, pengting?”

Arthur nudges his nose against Eames’s throat, to breathe the scent of his tacky cologne. “I used to know the owner.”

“Isit? You used to _know the owner_.”

Eames’s fingers are already tightening around Arthur’s hips, but Arthur lifts his chin anyway, daring Eames to make something of it.

“Yeah, I did.”

In an instant, Arthur’s body is crushed between the wall and Eames’s muscle. A rush of dizziness from the sudden movement sweeps over him and he has to cling to Eames’s shoulders to keep from swooning as Eames says, “Did you know him right here, against this wall?”

“I might have,” Arthur says, reaching down, to squeeze his fingers around the straining bulge pushing at the front of Eames’s jeans.

Soon, the only thing that Arthur can see is the spread of his own pale fingers against that red, red wall. The bands on his wrist glow softly. The colours are still too bright, even though the full effects of the poppers have long since faded.

A quick slick of spit on two of Eames’s fingers is all that is needed to make Arthur open up beneath him. The drugs have relaxed his muscles enough for a cock to slide right in.

Arthur’s nerve endings are still tingling. He is loose and pliant. He drops his head back onto the cushion of Eames’s shoulder, as Eames gasps against his ear. They stay still like that - Arthur with his arms braced out against the wall, Eames balls-deep inside of him.

Eames has one heavy arm folded around Arthur’s chest, pressing hard against his hyperactively fluttering heartbeat. Very slowly, Eames pulls back, until only the head of his cock is still inside Arthur’s body and Arthur is hissing and writhing, desperate to be full again.

Only the press of Eames’s knees behind his own prevents him from shoving back and impaling himself. He reaches for his cock and manages to pump his hand around it once, twice, before Eames is catching that hand and shoving it back to the wall, palm down.

“We don’t want to be vanilla about this,” he says.

Arthur squeezes down through his body and Eames grunts at the tightening of muscle around the sensitive head of his cock.

“I don’t care what flavour it is. If you don’t fuck me immediately, I’ll go find somebody who will. I’m sure there are still people around here who would remember me,” Arthur says, tilting his head to lick at the underside of Eames’s jaw.

The little barb of jealousy is enough. Eames thrusts forwards. He knows the exact angle to hit to pound out all of Arthur’s breath and send stars of pleasure skittering along his wrecked nerves.

They fuck in earnest, loud and hard, like the music which shakes the dance floor outside.

Arthur’s orgasm is torn out of him, like a screaming high note, as he feels the wet spill of Eames’s come, deep inside. The sensation is drawn out, from the residual effects of the drugs, and Arthur is clawing at the wall before the end, scratching paint up under his fingernails.

They pant into the sweat of each other’s necks as they come down from it, until the blood stops pounding and the echo of music begins to filter in. Then, they disengage and tidy themselves away with shaky hands.

When they break back out into the dark and the noise, Arthur does not let go of Eames’s hand. He does not want to and nobody could make him. The job is a fucking joke, anyway; when Arthur pulls out his now creased notebook, it is full of glitter and not much else. 

They find Dom and Yusuf near the entrance.

“Jesus Christ. Where have you been?” Dom says. “We did three laps of the place and couldn’t find you.”

Arthur’s head is pounding. His joints all feel too loose to hold up his body and he cannot make himself look even remotely contrite.

“What’s the matter with you?” Yusuf asks him.

“He’s just been fucked to within an inch of his life,” Eames says and when Arthur glares at him, he adds, “The truth will set you free."

Usually Arthur would deny such a claim, but _Poppiholla_ is rushing over the speakers and that song always makes Arthur think of Thailand, of Eames, of fucking Eames, of redemption and all he can do is lean into the body beside him and let the music absolve his guilt.

“I’m not going to last out until closing after all,” Arthur says. “I’ll pay for your taxi. I need to go home now and sleep for about three days. Also, I think I might still be tripping a little bit.”

“ _Arthur_ ,” Dom says, staring at him.

“I’m sorry.” Arthur is busy fastening one of the glowing bracelets – his least favourite, the yellow – around Dom’s wrist, as an apology. “One day I’ll come back to work and be professional again. Probably not tomorrow.”

Eames is laughing, snaking an arm around Arthur’s waist, and Dom points an accusatory finger at him.

“You are the worst thing that has ever happened to my business,” he says.

Predictably, these words have no impact whatsoever.

Arthur pulls his car keys out of his pocket, looks at them, and then dangles them out to Eames. Accepting the keys, Eames takes Arthur’s hand and kisses his knuckles. The music has not stopped playing, the lights have not stopped flashing, but they leave it all behind and head home.

*

 

Outside their house, standing on the porch, Arthur watches Eames sort through the keys on his key ring. The dim light beside the front door picks out the traces of silver still on Eames’s skin and Arthur wants to lick up each glittering particle.

“I love you,” Arthur says. “I don’t know why I won’t say that.”

The keys stop jangling in Eames’s hands.

“That’s the poppers talking.”

Arthur catches Eames’s shoulder and makes him turn around. “No. It’s the truth.”

The air around them is quiet, filled only with the thrum of nighttime. It feels like the most natural thing in the world for Arthur to hug Eames tightly, tucking his chin against Eames’s shoulder and curling his fingers into the fabric of Eames’s shirt. When Eames chuckles, the vibrations shudder through both of them.

“I’ve loved you from the first moment I got my hands on you,” he says, and Arthur’s heart flutters again, like another rush of drugs. From inside the house, Jay-Z is beginning to whine, but Eames’s body is firm and familiar in Arthur’s arms. He can feel the rhythmic press of breathing and the thudding beat of Eames’s pulse.

In a stage whisper, Eames says, “I wanted to add ‘innit’, to the end of that sentence.” 

Arthur presses his face to the side of Eames’s neck, where his smile will be felt. “I know you did.”

“I held off, though.”

“I appreciate that,” Arthur says, and then changes his mind. “Actually, I don’t. It feels weird when you don’t add it.”

“Innit, though.”

They pull apart enough to get the door open and then Eames is grinning wickedly, sweeping an elbow behind Arthur’s knees and lifting him up into his arms.

“No,” Arthur says, not least because Jay-Z is already hopping about around Eames’s ankles, a clear tripping hazard.

“Yes,” Eames says, and carries him over the threshold.


End file.
